Every successful project depends on the right team. But what attributes do outstanding project teams have? And how do you make sure the proper individuals are on board?
If you’re thinking about using staff augmentation to expand your organization, it’s critical to analyze its benefits and examples carefully. This blog article will discuss when staff augmentation makes sense and how to do so effectively.
So, let’s dive into it.
Table of Contents
What Does Staff Augmentation Mean?
Staff augmentation is the process of adding more employees to a company to fulfill high demands or accomplish particular objectives. This might be accomplished by contracting with outside companies to supply workers or employing additional employees.
By using staff augmentation, you can expand your team of developers to the project’s demands. Additionally, the team can welcome the increased number of employees at any time during the software development process. The goal is to increase the requisite skill set for a predetermined amount of time or at a specific developmental stage.
In other words, Staff augmentation is the employment of outside personnel for projects to address gaps in your in-house team.
“It is the long history of humankind (and animal kind, too) that those who learned to collaborate and improvise most effectively have prevailed.” – Charles Darwin
Benefits Of Staff Augmentation
Staff augmentation is a way to employ someone to work for your company. The key benefit of this kind of workforce adjustment is that it can lower the price of employee turnover and training. The staff augmentation strategy can also aid in boosting workplace productivity.
Let’s check the staff augmentation benefits.
Cost Savings
Staff augmentation is a cost-effective outsourcing technique because you pay for the time the hired specialist spends on your project (see Time & Materials pricing model). This reduces the expense of hiring and recruiting new employees and non-billable hours, sick days, and holiday pay.
You can track how many hours are spent on each task using augmented employees. When hiring highly talented engineers, you can concentrate solely on meeting business needs rather than dealing with all the administrative duties associated with having an in-house expert.
The cost of augmented employees is the actual cost; you only need to pay one bill to access the talents.
In this approach, you may avoid worrying about the costs of employing employees, labor, software licenses, hardware, education, perks, and any other unforeseen expenses.
Access To Expertise
You can access their pre-screened talent pool when you work with a staff augmentation company. Businesses may save money on benefits and other expenses related to full-time employees.
Additionally, you can access specific knowledge that might not be accessed internally. When employing an internal staff, you always select a candidate that meets your requirements.
Improved Productivity
You can give your current team more time to concentrate on their primary duties by adding other workers to support them. This may result in greater production and efficiency for your company.
Scalability
When the project expands over time, you can develop your internal Staff quickly. You can employ a dedicated development team with the appropriate skill set, continue the project at the proper scale, and not worry about a higher degree of deliverability rather than worrying about more employees who might be fired once the project is delivered.
Location
It might be challenging to find highly skilled specialists in your market. Your best option may be staff augmentation, especially if your team is English-oriented. You can choose any specialist from most nations as most of the IT industry already speaks English.
Additionally, if you work with clients from other nations, you might search for local experts who can help you with challenges like everyday communication or anything else that might come up.
Increased Flexibility
Staff augmentation provides your organization additional flexibility in managing workloads. You can hire other people as needed to handle peak demand rather than being constrained by full-time workers who may only sometimes be required.
It can help you reduce payroll costs, benefits, and other overhead expenditures.
Examples Of Staff Augmentation
There is an example of how Ukraine can hire a team of developers from India. Here let’s take the staff augmentation example of a company:
|
Clients side |
Team |
|
Project Manager |
iOS Developer |
|
Android Developer |
|
|
Management & Development Teams |
QA Department |
|
Development Team |
Specializes staff with unique skills |
If you want a team of remote software developers in Ukraine (example) that seamlessly complements your in-house specialists and development process, you can contact staff augmentation companies in India by just filling out a form, and their team will reply to you within 24 hours.
Read Also: Which Option is Better for Your Enterprise: IT Staff Augmentation or Project-Based Consulting?
How Does Staff Augmentation Work?
The method of Staff Augmentation is quick and adaptable. Check out the below steps to learn how staff augmentation works.
-
Get Project Requirements Together
The outsourcing partner gets the project specifications and finds out the expertise the customer requires before assembling a team. Maintain open lines of communication with the client throughout the pre-sale and development phases. A close working relationship with the client delivers a satisfactory outcome.
-
Choose A Team
After determining your needs, you can start looking for qualified individuals to join your augmented team. The outsourcing firm will choose experts with the necessary experience, abilities, and technical knowledge based on the project requirements. This procedure could take one to three weeks.
-
Bring Augmented Team Onboard
The crucial moment is when you bring your team on board and begin working on the project. The onboarding phase includes appointing the project managers and setting the communication routes and management tools.
Software Team Augmentation Use Cases
Putting together an internal team can be expensive and time-consuming. You can employ a technical project manager or a team of highly qualified remote developers through IT staff augmentation and dedicate them to a particular project within your company without incurring any overhead.
Because of this, the following scenarios when you can consider staff augmentation:
- Reinforce Your Team: When introducing new products or starting new initiatives, it is crucial to supplement or increase your current strength, even when you have in-house software developers.
In this situation, you might seek to expand your IT staff while utilizing internal resources that are already available. This kind of reinforcement is prevalent when a company uses a staff augmentation strategy.
- Meet Deadlines: From job posting through onboarding, the hiring process for software development positions takes a while. The luxury of time and patience, which could take an average of two months, is probably not something you may always have.
Whether you sign a short-term or long-term contract, you can still fulfill your needs by implementing the IT staff augmentation model. Additionally, you can quickly find a sizable pool of software engineers from all around the world.
- Specific Skills: Staff augmentation can assist close a skill gap in IT or software development by giving extra workers the abilities they need to finish a project or job.
You could quickly grow your workforce by adding expert engineers or technicians (DevOps, data scientists, quality assurance engineers, or business analysts), or you might need to hire someone who can train your current personnel over time and has a specific skill set.
- Bridge Gap in Workforce: While you look for long-term employees, starting a staff augmentation project can help you hire software development engineers to fill temporary positions.
They would aid in filling the staffing gap so you can continue with your projects even as you go through the customary hiring procedure.
Is Staff Augmentation The Right Model For Your Project?
Whether you intend to hire internally or depend on the scalability and speed of an IT Staff Augmentation vendor, it’s important to be aware of your alternatives for putting together a top-notch software developer team. Why not compare the two strategies to determine which works best for your company and working style?
You can seek advice on how to put together the best software team possible for your offering. Ask an IT team augmentation vendor for a trial work period to explore how an outside developer can improve the skills and expertise of your team.
You can inform your vendor when you no longer require that person’s expertise or specialization, and you can relax knowing that your external will be hired for another fascinating work.
Looking To Extend Your Development Team?
Before making a choice, it’s crucial to understand staff augmentation because there are benefits to adopting these services. Staff augmentation can be an excellent choice when you need extra assistance but don’t want to commit to hiring full-time personnel. It can also be successful with careful thought and planning.
Get in touch with a staff augmentation company in India if you are currently looking for assistance with a project.
Frequently Asked Questions
Question. When is staff augmentation right for you?
Answer. Staff augmentation is an excellent tool for raising productivity. However, it is not a one-size-fits-all strategy. Team augmentation is useful only under a few circumstances. Here are a few examples:
- Starting a Side Project
- Short-term Projects
- Outsource Does Not Fit
- Quick Launch
Question. What are the drawbacks of Staff Augmentation?
Answer. When employing a staff augmentation method, the following possible drawbacks should also be considered:
- Lack Of Internal Knowledge
- Project Management
- Training
Question. Why should you choose Staff Augmentation?
Answer. There are multiple reasons why you should choose staff augmentation services. Some of them are:
- High Standard
- On-time completion of work
- Fill skill gaps
- A wider pool of talent
